Systems and methods for avoiding spoilers in presenting recording prompts relating to a competition

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described for a media guidance application (e.g., implemented on a user device) that avoids spoilers in presenting recording prompts relating to a competition by scheduling presentation of notifications according to the user profile.

BACKGROUND

The amount of media available to users in any given media deliverysystem can be substantial. Users simply have no time to watch allavailable media that is of interest to them, and must rely onconventional media systems to manually record media they have missed,for viewing at a later time. For specific types of media assets (e.g.,sports games broadcasts), a user may not know when to record upcominggames because the teams or players that are of interest to the user maynot qualify for the tournament, may get eliminated, or may have theirgame rescheduled. On the other hand, conventional media systems thatautomatically record media or cancel scheduled recordings may alert theuser of a scheduled recording change at an inappropriate time, and inturn spoil the results of a competition. For example, suppose the user'sfavorite basketball team has won three games in a best-of-seven seriesof the NBA playoffs. The conventional media system may inform the userthat it is scheduled to record the fifth game, indicating the user'sfavorite team lost in the fourth game and needs to play additionalgames. This prevents the user from fully enjoying the media asset ifhe/she chooses to view it because he/she already knows the results.

SUMMARY

Systems and methods are described to address shortcomings in theconventional media systems via a novel technique for avoiding spoilersin presenting recording prompts relating to a competition. Unlikeconventional media systems, these systems and methods may automaticallyrecord upcoming game broadcasts of teams or players that are of interestto the user. If the team or player exits the tournament, the systems andmethods may alert the user of the result at an appropriate time basedon, but not limited to, the user's viewing history, preferences, andcalendar. The systems and methods disclosed herein facilitate adetermination of whether a participant of interest may appear in asubsequent round of a competition based on a competition rule for thecompetition, and a result of the competition. For example, the systemsand methods may determine that a tennis competition has abest-of-three-matches competition rule, where a participant qualifiesfor a subsequent round by winning at least two of three matches within around. If the participant of interest qualifies for the next roundaccording to the competition rule, the systems and methods can add amedia asset corresponding to a subsequent competition round to the listof scheduled recordings for a user. If the participant does not qualifyfor the subsequent round, the systems and methods can add a phantommedia asset identifier to the list of scheduled recordings for a user. Aphantom media asset identifier represents a placeholder that isassociated with the competition that would potentially happen if theparticipant had indeed qualified for the subsequent round. It should benoted that the phantom media asset identifier will not actually berecorded because no media asset will be transmitted. The phantom mediaasset identifier prevents the results of a competition from beingspoiled based on the list of scheduled recordings for a user (e.g., theuser can determine that the competitor was eliminated in a specificround because no subsequent rounds are scheduled to be recorded). Untilthe user knows the outcome of the competition, the phantom media assetidentifier will appear in the scheduled recordings.

The systems and methods described herein may be useful in cases where acompetition spans a duration of days, weeks, or months. The systems andmethods may be useful in cases where the competition follows adeterministic competition rule over that duration. In these cases, wherethe competition follows a deterministic rule, an outcome of thecompetition can be determined with certainty based on whether a certaincondition has been met. For example, the competition may follow a tripleelimination round rule where a participant is eliminated from thecompetition based on losing any three games within a round of thecompetition. For example, the competition may follow a consecutivetriple elimination match rule where a participant is eliminated from thecompetition based on losing three consecutive matches within a round.The systems and methods may modify a list of scheduled recordings basedon the determination of the certain outcome. For example, if aparticipant of interest is eliminated from a competition, the systemsand methods may cancel scheduled recordings for subsequent instances ofmedia assets of the set of media assets related to the competition. Forexample, if a participant of interest qualifies for a subsequent roundof a competition, the systems and methods may add to a scheduledrecording list a subsequent instance of a media asset in which theparticipant is expected to appear.

The systems and methods described herein may be useful in cases wherethe user has not viewed all the stored media assets and does not want tobe notified of the outcomes of the unseen media assets. For example, theuser may be interested in viewing the progress of his/her favorite teamin the NBA playoffs. If the team participated in three games beforebeing eliminated and the user has not viewed all three games, thesystems and methods may inform the user of the tournament result afterthe user has viewed all three games. The systems and methods may alsorefer to a user profile to determine whether the user is available toview the stored media assets. If the systems and methods determine thatthe user does not have time to view the stored media assets, the systemsand methods may alert the user of the competition result and provide asummary and highlights reel of the competition at a time when the useris available.

The systems and methods disclosed hereby may identify a competitor inthe competition that is of interest to a user. The systems and methodsmay determine whether the competitor is featured in any of a pluralityof media assets associated with the competition scheduled fortransmission in the future, and schedule presentation of a notificationto the user that the competitor is not featured in any of the pluralityof media assets associated with the competition based on a user profile.

In some aspects, systems and methods are provided for avoiding spoilersin presenting recording prompts related to a competition. The systemsand methods may identify a competitor in the competition that is ofinterest to a user. For example, the systems and methods may identify auser's favorite NFL football team that is participating in the NFLplayoffs. In some embodiments, identifying the competitor comprisesreceiving search criteria from the user specifying a team or player. Forexample, the user may specify the team of interest as the “New EnglandPatriots,” or specify “Tom Brady,” the quarterback in the New EnglandPatriots, in a search box. In some embodiments, identifying thecompetitor comprises searching a user profile to identify a team orplayer that is associated with the user. For example, the user may havea viewing history that has multiple occurrences of the user watchingfootball games featuring the New England Patriots. The systems andmethods may identify the New England Patriots as a competitor ofinterest to the user.

The systems and methods may search for media asset information toidentify a plurality of media assets, associated with the competition,scheduled for transmission in the future. For example, the systems andmethods may search for information about upcoming playoff gamesscheduled for streaming. Specifically, the systems and methods mayretrieve media guidance data and analyze the media guidance data todetermine broadcast times and sources for instances of the playofffootball games.

The systems and methods may process data associated with the pluralityof media assets to determine whether the competitor is featured in anyof the plurality of media assets associated with the competition. Forexample, suppose the competitor of interest is the New England Patriotsteam. The systems and methods may process data associated with theplayoff game broadcasts or streams to determine that the New EnglandPatriots will be featured in them. In some embodiments, processing datacomprises receiving a competition result associated with the identifiedcompetitor, retrieving a competition rule associated with thecompetition, and determining based on the competition rule and thecompetition result that the identified competitor does not advance froma first portion to a second portion of the competition. For example, thecompetition result may indicate that the New England Patriots had 18points and the Denver Broncos, their opposition, had 20 points in thefirst portion of the competition (e.g., the conference championshipgame). The competition rule may state that the competitor with the mostpoints in the conference championship game may advance to the secondportion of the competition, the Super Bowl. The systems and methods maydetermine that the New England Patriots had fewer points than the DenverBroncos in the conference championship game, and will not advance to theSuper Bowl, based on the competition rule. If the game is a part of theregular season, the competition rule may further detail that the topeight teams with the most wins in the regular season will advance to theNFL playoffs.

The systems and methods may determine that the competitor is featured inat least one of the media assets associated with the competition, and inresponse, cause at least one media asset to be stored for the user. Forexample, the systems and methods may determine that a playoff gamestream is scheduled for 8:30 pm and will feature the New EnglandPatriots. The systems and methods may store that playoff game stream forthe user.

The systems and methods may determine that the competitor is notfeatured in any of the plurality of media assets associated with thecompetition and in response, retrieve a user profile associated with theuser; and schedule presentation of a notification to the user that thecompetitor is not featured in any of the plurality of media assetsassociated with the competition based on the retrieved user profile. Forexample, the systems and methods may determine that New England Patriotsare not featured in any of the upcoming playoff game broadcasts. Thismay signify that the New England Patriots have been eliminated from theplayoffs, or were not a part of the competition altogether. If thecompetition is the NFL regular season, the New England Patriots notbeing featured in future football games broadcasts or streams cansignify that the team's season has ended. In response, the systems andmethods may schedule a notification for the user based on the user'sprofile. For example, this notification may inform the user that the NewEngland Patriots have been eliminated from the NFL playoffs or theirseason has ended. Suppose the retrieved user profile details that theuser is currently watching all New England Patriots playoff games. Ifthe New England Patriots won in the first two rounds and were eliminatedin the third round, the systems and methods may schedule thenotification that the New England Patriots were eliminated after theuser has completed watching the third round.

The notification serves two purposes. The first purpose is to inform theuser that the competitor has been eliminated from the competition ofinterest to the user. This is facilitated by a textual descriptionstating that the competitor has been eliminated, as well as highlightsof the competition through any combination of text, audio, and video.The second purpose is to inform the user that the list of scheduledrecordings will no longer include media assets associated with thecompetition featuring the competitor. This is because the competitor isno longer participating in the competition. In response, the systems andmethods may offer related media assets that the user can add to the listof scheduled recordings instead.

In some embodiments, the competition result is associated with apreviously available media asset featuring the competitor. In suchcases, the systems and methods determine from the user profile, whetherthe user has viewed the previously available media asset at a scheduledtransmission time of the previously available media asset. For example,if the playoff game stream featuring the New England Patriots and theDenver Broncos took place on Sunday night and the systems and methodsare checking the following morning, the systems and methods may refer tothe user profile to determine whether the playoff game stream is in theuser's viewing history.

In some embodiments, the system and methods may schedule thepresentation of the notification at the end of the scheduledtransmission time of the previously available media asset, in responseto determining that the user has viewed the previously available mediaasset featuring the competitor during the scheduled transmission time ofthe media asset. For example, suppose the user has viewed the conferencechampionship game stream at the time of its scheduled transmission. Thesystems and methods may then present the notification, informing theuser that New England Patriots games will no longer be available becauseof the team's elimination, after the end of the conference championshipgame stream.

In some embodiments, the system and methods may schedule thepresentation of the notification at the end of the latest stored mediaasset associated to the competition, in response to determining that theuser has viewed the latest stored media asset featuring the competitor.For example, suppose the systems and methods have stored two games ofthe NFL playoffs featuring the New England Patriots. Suppose the NewEngland Patriots are eliminated during the second game. The systems andmethods may present the notification, informing the user that NewEngland Patriots games will no longer be available because of the team'selimination, after the user has completed watching the second game(e.g., the latest stored media asset).

In some embodiments, the s systems and methods may determine that theuser has not viewed the previously available media asset featuring thecompetitor during the scheduled transmission time. In response, thesystems and methods may determine, based on the user profile, whetherthe user has future availability to view a stored version of thepreviously available media asset. In response to determining the userhas future availability to view the stored version of the previouslyavailable media asset, the systems and methods may schedule thepresentation of the notification immediately after the user views thestored version of the previously available media asset. Revisiting theprevious example, the user may not have viewed the conferencechampionship game stream featuring the New England Patriots. In turn,the systems and methods may determine that the user has not viewed thegame stream because his/her user profile does not include the gamestream in the viewing history. In response, the systems and methods maydetermine that the user has future availability to view the storedversion of the game stream. In some embodiments, determining whether theuser has future availability to view the stored version of thepreviously available media asset comprises retrieving a calendarassociated with the user, identifying content a user plans to accessbased on the calendar, and determining whether there is a gap in thecalendar in which the user does not plan to access content that has alength corresponding to a duration of the stored version of thepreviously available media asset. For example, the systems and methodsmay refer to the user profile and retrieve the user's weekly schedule ofmedia assets. Suppose the New England Patriots conference championshipgame video is three hours long. If the user's calendar indicates thatthe user intends to watch “Game of Thrones” between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm,followed by “CNN News” between 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm, the systems andmethods may determine that the user is free for four hours between 4:00pm and 8:00 pm. Therefore, the user can watch the stored video of theplayoff game. In response to determining that the user has futureavailability, the systems and methods may schedule a notification afterthe user has watched the stored video of the conference championshipgame.

In some embodiments, the systems and methods may determine that the userdoes not have future availability to view a stored version of thepreviously available media asset. In response, the systems and methodsmay schedule the presentation of the notification at the end of thescheduled transmission time and present a summary of the previouslyavailable media asset. The summary may include an option to access atleast one of video, audio, and textual highlights of the previouslyavailable media asset. For example, the systems and methods may refer tothe user profile and retrieve the user's weekly schedule of mediaassets. The user's calendar may indicate that user intends to watch“Game of Thrones” between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm, followed by “TheSimpsons” between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm, and “CNN News” between 8:00 pmand 9:00 pm, every day. Suppose the user watches stored media onlybetween 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm. As such, the systems and methods maydetermine that the user will not be available to view the conferencechampionship game featuring the New England Patriots and may schedulethe presentation of the notification that the New England Patriots havebeen eliminated from the playoffs at the end of the scheduledtransmission of the conference championship game. Alongside thenotification, the systems and methods may provide a summary of the gamescore, and provide highlights of important plays in the game andanalysis of player and team performance.

In some embodiments, the systems and methods may detect that the userhas viewed an alternative media asset that features the competitionresult of the competition featuring the competitor, and schedulepresentation for a notification at the end of the alternative mediaasset. For example, the user may come across a commercial or a newschannel that presents the outcome of the competition of interest to theuser. For example, the user may watch the sports section of Fox News inwhich the sports anchor states the New England Patriots were eliminatedby the Denver Broncos in the conference championship game. The systemsand methods may parse the news stream's audio using speech recognitiontechniques to detect keywords such as the competitor's name, thecompetition's name, “lost,” “eliminated,” and the final score. Forexample, the sports anchor may state “the New England Patriots lost theconference championship game to the Denver Broncos last night.” Thesystems and methods may also parse the news stream's video data usingcomputer vision techniques to identify video frames that have overlaidtext headlines or game highlights from the competition featuring thecompetitor. For example, the video may feature headlines stating “NewEngland Patriots Eliminated in Conference Finals” or the video mayfeature highlights of the game with a final score overlaid. If the userhas not already viewed the stored media asset featuring the competitionthat the sports anchor or headlines are referring to, the systems andmethods may present a notification that the user's competitor has beeneliminated at the end of the sports section news.

In a similar example, the user may encounter a commercial that ispromoting the next round of the NFL football playoffs to which theuser's competitor, the New England Patriots, will not advance. Thecommercial may state, for example, “after defeating the New EnglandPatriots in the conference championship, the Denver Broncos are all setto compete in the Super Bowl this Sunday at 8 pm.” The systems andmethods may parse the stream featuring the commercial to detect keywordssuch as “New England Patriots,” “Denver Broncos,” “conferencechampionship,” and “defeating.” The systems and methods may furtherdetermine whether these keywords correspond to the competition resultand, in response to determining that the keywords correspond to thecompetition result, schedule presentation of the notification to theuser at the end of the commercial that the competitor is no longer inthe competition.

It should be noted that the systems, methods, apparatuses, and/oraspects described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or aspects described in thisdisclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 show illustrative examples of display screens generatedby a media guidance application in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for schedulingpresentation of a notification to the user in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of a detailed illustrative process for schedulingpresentation of a notification to the user in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for identifying acompetitor based on the attributes of the user profile in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for determining thatthe identified competitor does not advance from a first portion to asecond portion of the competition in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure; and

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an illustrative process for schedulingpresentation of a notification based on user availability in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are described to address shortcomings in theconventional media systems via a novel technique for avoiding spoilersin presenting recording prompts relating to a competition. The systemsand methods may identify a competitor in the competition that is ofinterest to a user, determine whether the competitor is featured in anyof a plurality of media assets associated with the competition scheduledfor transmission in the future, and schedule presentation of anotification to the user that the competitor is not featured in any ofthe plurality of media assets associated with the competition based on auser profile.

The systems and methods may be implemented via an interactive mediaguidance application running on a user device, a remote server, oranother suitable device. The interactive media guidance application maybe implemented partially on multiple devices such that some portions ofthe interactive media guidance application are executed on one devicewhile other portions of the interactive media guidance application areexecuted on another device.

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

Consider a scenario in which two college basketball teams, the KentuckyWildcats and the Florida Gators, are competing in the NCAA BasketballChampionship tournament. The user is interested in knowing the outcomeof all games associated with the Kentucky Wildcats. Accordingly, themedia guidance application identifies the Kentucky Wildcats as thecompetitor in the competition of interest to the user, the NCAABasketball Championship tournament. Furthermore, the media guidanceapplication determines the scheduled broadcast timings of the gamesfeaturing the Kentucky Wildcats and adds them to a list of scheduledrecordings. The user may also have requested to record instances of theset of media assets in which the Kentucky Wildcats participate.

Suppose that the user is unable to watch the video broadcast of anupcoming NCAA Basketball Championship game featuring the KentuckyWildcats as they face the Florida Gators, during the scheduledtransmission time on a Monday night. Nonetheless, the media guidanceapplication stores the media asset for later viewing. Furthermore,suppose that after competing in one game, the Kentucky Wildcats areeliminated by the Florida Gators in round one, after losing the game inwhich they scored 91 points and the Florida Gators scored 97 points. Ifthe Kentucky Wildcats defeated the Florida Gators, they would haveadvanced to the next round to face the Florida State Seminoles. Instead,the Florida Gators are now advancing to the next round to face theFlorida State Seminoles. The media guidance application retrieves thecompetition result and compares it to the competition rule. In thiscase, the competition rule states that the team with the higher numberof points advances to the next round, and the competition result is thatthe Kentucky Wildcats scored 91 points while the Florida Gators scored97 points. The media guidance application determines that the KentuckyWildcats have been eliminated by the Florida Gators based on thecompetition result and competition rule.

The media guidance application then initiates the process of schedulingpresentation of a notification informing the user that the KentuckyWildcats have been eliminated from the NCAA Basketball Championshiptournament and that future recordings featuring the Kentucky Wildcatscannot be scheduled because the Kentucky Wildcats will no longer play.The media guidance application then determines whether the user intendsto view the stored version of the media asset (e.g., recording of thegame). Suppose the stored version of the media asset has a duration oftwo hours. The media guidance application retrieves the user profile andanalyzes the list of scheduled recordings, the user's watch-listcalendar, etc., and determines that the user has availability to viewthe stored version of the media asset. For example, the user may nothave anything scheduled for viewing on Saturday between 8:00 pm and11:30 pm. The media guidance application may add the stored version ofthe media asset to the user's watch-list calendar at 8:30 pm andschedule presentation of the notification that the competitor, theKentucky Wildcats, has been eliminated, once the user has completedwatching the stored version of the media asset (e.g., 10:00 pm).

However, suppose that the round two game of the tournament will bebroadcasted on Thursday night at 8:00 pm. Rather than watching thestored version of the media asset, the user decides to watch the nextgame in the tournament (e.g., round two) and discovers that the user'scompetitor, the Kentucky Wildcats, has been eliminated. The round twogame instead features the Florida Gators and the Florida StateSeminoles. In response, the media guidance application determines thatthe user is viewing the next portion of the competition in which theKentucky Wildcats are no longer participating, cancels the scheduledpresentation of the notification at 10:00 pm Saturday, and immediatelypresents the notification described in FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative example of a display screen 100 generatedby the interactive media guidance application in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. In the example, the interactive mediaguidance application has determined that the competitor, the KentuckyWildcats, participating in the NCAA Basketball Championship competitionhas been eliminated by the Florida Gators. For example, the interactivemedia guidance application may have determined that the competition ruledetails that the competitor with the most points at the end of a gameadvances to the next round. As referred to herein, the phrase“competition rule” should be understood to mean a set of conditions andrelations that is used to determine or estimate whether a participantadvances from a first portion of a competition to a second portion ofthe competition. As referred to herein, the phrase “probabilistic rule”should be understood to mean a set of conditions and relations that isused to estimate a likelihood of whether a participant advances from afirst portion of a competition to a second portion of the competitionbased on a threshold. In some embodiments, the threshold may have beenset by a user manually, or may have been set by the interactive mediaguidance application based on adaptively determining a level of a user'sinterest in a team based on performance of the team during a seasoncompetition. As referred to herein, the phrase competition result shouldbe understood to mean an outcome of a portion of a competition (e.g., agame, match, round, any other suitable portion or any combinationthereof). The interactive media guidance application may have determinedthat in their last game the Kentucky Wildcats scored 91 points and theFlorida Gators scored 97 points. Since the Florida Gators scored morepoints, the media guidance application may determine that the FloridaGators advance to the next round and the Kentucky Wildcats areeliminated from the competition.

The overlay 110 informs the user of details associated with the contenthe/she is are viewing. For example, if the user is watching a basketballgame featuring the teams, the Gators and the Seminoles, the overlay mayindicate the time the game broadcast began and the time it is expectedto end. The broadcast channel logo and number will be displayed ifavailable. The overlay may also provide a description of the contentthat the user is viewing. For example, textual data stating “NCAABasketball Championship: Gators v. Seminoles” may be displayed.

The overlay 120 may include a first portion 122 providing a notificationof one or more selectable options (e.g., selectable options 124, 126,128). In this example, the notification 122 informs the user thathis/her competitor, the Kentucky Wildcats, has been eliminated from theNCAA Basketball Championship by the Florida Gators. Furthermore, itstates that future recordings of the Kentucky Wildcats have either beencancelled or cannot be scheduled.

The purpose of scheduling presentation of a notification (e.g.,presented as an overlay 120) is to prevent the results of competitionsfrom being spoiled for a user. Presentation of a notification shouldideally happen when the user is aware of the outcome of a competitionfeaturing the competitor. For example, this may be the case when theuser has watched the original broadcast of the game, or the user haswatched the stored media asset of the game, or the user has found outthe outcome through another source (e.g., a conversation, a poster, amagazine, etc). In the first two cases, the media guidance applicationcan determine (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (discussed in FIG. 4description)) that the user has watched the original broadcast of thegame or the stored media asset of the game based on the user profile(e.g., retrieved from storage 408 (discussed in FIG. 4 description)).The user profile may provide information to the media guidanceapplication of the user's viewing history. For example, if the mediaguidance application determines that user has already viewed the game inwhich the competitor was eliminated based on the user's viewing history,the media guidance application may determine that notification bepresented immediately.

Furthermore, the media guidance application may determine (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (discussed in FIG. 4 description)) that the useris viewing the second portion of the competition. This determination canbe based on information the media guidance application receives (e.g.,from media guidance data source 518 or communication network 514(discussed in FIG. 5 description)) from Internet data sources (e.g., RSSfeeds, news sources, social media sources, etc.) that indicate that thesecond portion of the competition has begun. The example triggering thenotification in FIG. 1 is applicable in this case. In the example, theuser's competitor, the Kentucky Wildcats, has been eliminated in thefirst round of the NCAA Basketball Championship tournament. Even if theuser does not watch the first-round game featuring the KentuckyWildcats, if the user begins watching the second-round game during itsscheduled transmission time, the media guidance application may presentthe notification that the Kentucky Wildcats have been eliminated. Thisis because the second-round game will feature different competitors, andthe user may be aware that the Kentucky Wildcats have been eliminateddue to their absence from the second-round game.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine (e.g.,via control circuitry 404 (discussed in FIG. 4 description)) that theuser has viewed an alternative media asset that features the competitionresult of the competition featuring the competitor, and schedulepresentation for a notification at the end of the alternative mediaasset. For example, the user may come across a commercial or a newschannel that presents the outcome of the competition of interest to theuser. For example, the user may watch the sports section of Fox News inwhich the sports anchor states the Kentucky Wildcats were eliminated bythe Florida Gators from the NCAA Basketball Championship tournament. Themedia guidance application may parse the news stream's audio usingspeech recognition techniques to detect keywords such as thecompetitor's name, the competition's name, “defeated,” “eliminated,” andthe final score. For example, the sports anchor may state “the KentuckyWildcats were eliminated from the playoffs by the Florida Gators lastnight.” The media guidance application may also parse the news stream'svideo data using computer vision techniques to identify video framesthat have overlaid text headlines or game highlights from thecompetition featuring the competitor. For example, the video may featureheadlines stating “Kentucky Wildcats Defeated by the Florida Gators” orthe video may feature highlights of the game with a final scoreoverlaid. If the user has not already viewed the stored media assetfeaturing the competition that the sports anchor or headlines arereferring to, the media guidance application may present a notificationas an overlay 120 that the user's competitor has been eliminated at theend of the sports section news.

In a similar example, the user may encounter a commercial that ispromoting the next round of the NCAA Basketball Championship tournamentin which the user's competitor, the Kentucky Wildcats, will not advance.The commercial may state for example “after defeating the KentuckyWildcats in the NCAA Basketball Championship tournament, the FloridaGators are all set to face the Florida State Seminoles this Sunday at 8pm.” The media guidance application may parse the stream featuring thecommercial to detect keywords such as “Kentucky Wildcats,” “FloridaGators,” “NCAA” and “defeating.” The media guidance application mayfurther determine whether these keywords correspond to the competitionresult and, in response to determining that the keywords correspond tothe competition result, schedule presentation of the notification to theuser at the end of the commercial that the competitor is no longer inthe competition.

To detect that the competition result is featured in the alternativemedia asset (or lack thereof), the media guidance application may useone or more detection modules. A detection module of the media guidanceapplication may include one or more content-recognition modules, whichmay be used by the media guidance application to analyze informationreceived from a content capture device (e.g., video and/or audiorecorder). For example, the media guidance application may include anobject recognition module. The object recognition module may use edgedetection, pattern recognition, including, but not limited to,self-learning systems (e.g., neural networks), optical characterrecognition, on-line character recognition (including, but not limitedto, dynamic character recognition, real-time character recognition,intelligent character recognition), and/or any other suitable techniqueor method to determine the objects in and/or characteristics of video,audio, and textual data. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive a media asset in the form of a video of the actions of a user.The video may include a series of frames. For each frame of the video,the media guidance application may use an object recognition module todetermine the characteristics associated with each frame (or the mediaassets as a whole) of the video to determine whether or not a particularmedia object (e.g., an image in a frame of the video, a word in thesubtitle data of the video, etc.) occurs.

In some embodiments, the content-recognition module or algorithm mayalso include audio analysis and speech recognition techniques,including, but not limited to, Hidden Markov Models, dynamic timewarping, and/or neural networks (as described above) to process audiodata and/or translate spoken words into text. The content-recognitionmodule may also use any other suitable techniques for processing audioand/or visual data. For example, the content-recognition module mayanalyze audio data to determine whether or not a media object is present(e.g., whether or not a character in the media asset has spoken akeyword). Furthermore, the content-recognition module may analyze videoand/or audio data to determine whether or not the competition result isfeatured in the alternative media asset.

The first selectable option 124 may ask the user if they wish to recordthe upcoming media assets of the team or player that eliminated theircompetitor. Based on receiving a user selection of the first selectablemedia option, and an affirmative response (e.g., selection of “Y”), themedia guidance application may continue recording games in which theFlorida Gators are expected to participate. Based on receiving anegative response (e.g., selection of “N”), the media guidanceapplication may not record games in which the Florida Gators areexpected to participate, for example, by removing subsequent instancesincluding the Florida Gators as participants from the list of scheduledrecordings. For example, this confirmation enables a user to selectivelycancel recordings for instances of the set of media assets in order toconserve storage space on a recording device (e.g., local recordingdevice at a user equipment device within the user's home, or at a remoterecording device at a remote server).

Depending on the competition and competition rule, the first selectableoption 124 may request that a user confirm whether to continue recordinggames associated with his/her competitor. For example, in a competitionsuch as the regular NBA basketball season, the competition rule maydetail that the top eight teams with the most wins in each conferencewill advance to the NBA playoffs. Suppose a user selects a team that hasfour games remaining in the season, but requires twenty additional winsto become a part of the top eight teams in the team's conference. Inthis case, the media guidance application may determine that the teamselected by the user cannot satisfy the competition rule. However,because the team has four remaining games in their season, the mediaguidance application may request the user to confirm whether to continuerecording games featuring the team. Suppose the user selects the NewYork Knicks. Based on receiving a user selection of the first selectablemedia option, and an affirmative response (e.g., selection of “Y”), themedia guidance application may continue recording season games in whichthe New York Knicks are expected to participate. Based on receiving anegative response (e.g., selection of “N”), the media guidanceapplication may stop recording season games in which the New York Knicksare expected to participate, for example, by removing subsequentinstances including the New York Knicks as participants from the list ofscheduled recordings. This confirmation enables the user to confirmwhether to continue recording subsequent games in which the New YorkKnicks are scheduled to play, even though the subsequent games likelywill not affect whether the New York Knicks can participate in a finaltournament. For example, this confirmation enables a user to selectivelycancel recordings for instances of the set of media assets in order toconserve storage space on a recording device (e.g., a local recordingdevice at a user equipment device within the user's home, or at a remoterecording device at a remote server).

In some embodiments, the first selectable option may enable the user toinstruct the media guidance application to record games that includeanother participant instead of the user's competitor or the team thateliminated the user's competitor. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine, based on a user profile created by the user,that the user has a preference hierarchy for a plurality of teams, ofwhich the Kentucky Wildcats has a highest preference priority. The mediaguidance application may select the team with the next highestpreference priority from the preference hierarchy.

The second selectable option 126 may enable the user to view highlightsof the games featuring the user's competitor. For example, the user mayselect to view video, audio, or textual information about theircompetitor's performance in their last game. This information may bedisplayed in the form of a game summary, a box-score, video highlightsof key plays, post-game analysis by sports analysts, and commentary fromthe game. Revisiting the example depicted in FIG. 1, the user may selectoption 126 to be informed that the final score of the Kentucky Wildcatsand the Florida Gators game was 91 to 97, and to view prominent momentsof the game such as slam dunks and fast breaks.

It should be noted that the second selectable option 126 is madeavailable to the user when the media guidance application determinesthat the user has not seen the media asset or does not have theavailability to view it. For example, a user may be able to view thestored version of the media asset or the media asset at the scheduledtransmission time. In these situations, the user may not need to viewthe highlights because the user has already seen the game. In the casethat the user has not seen the media asset, the media guidanceapplication may schedule presentation of the notification based on theuser's availability. In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay determine (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (discussed in FIG. 4description)) that the user does not have future availability to view astored version of the previously available media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may refer to the user profile and retrievethe user's weekly viewing schedule of media assets. The user's calendarmay indicate that the user intends to watch “Game of Thrones” between3:00 pm and 4:00 pm, followed by “The Simpsons” between 4:00 pm and 8:00pm, and “CNN News” between 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm, every day. Suppose theuser only watches stored media between 3:00 pm and 9:00 pm. As such, themedia guidance application may determine that the user will not beavailable to view the stored version of the media asset. In this case,the media guidance application may present the notification immediatelyto the user and the notification will contain the second selectableoption 126.

The notification overlay 120 serves two purposes. The first purpose isto inform the user that the competitor has been eliminated from thecompetition of interest to the user. This is facilitated by a textualdescription such as 122, stating that the competitor has beeneliminated, as well as highlights of the competition (e.g., secondselectable option 126) through any combination of text, audio, andvideo. The second purpose is to inform the user that the list ofscheduled recordings will no longer include media assets associated withthe competition featuring the competitor. This is because the competitoris no longer participating in the competition. In response, the mediaguidance application may offer related media assets that the user canadd to the list of scheduled recordings instead.

The third selectable option 128 may enable the user to modify the listof scheduled recordings. For example, based on receiving a userselection of the third selectable option, the media guidance applicationmay generate for display a menu that enables the user to manually selectinstances for removal from the list of scheduled recordings.Alternatively, or in addition (e.g., as part of the same display), themedia guidance application may generate for display a menu that enablesthe user to manually add subsequent instances from the set of mediaassets to the list of recordings.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may add a phantommedia asset identifier to the list of scheduled recordings, in responseto determining that the competitor does not advance from a first portionto a second portion of the competition. A phantom media asset identifierrepresents a placeholder that is associated with the second portion ofthe competition, which would potentially feature the competitor if theysatisfied the competition rule (e.g., the competitor advanced to thenext round). It should be noted that the phantom media asset identifierwill not actually be recorded because no media asset will betransmitted. The phantom media asset identifier serves as a mechanism toprevent spoilers. It prevents the results of a competition from beingspoiled based on the list of scheduled recordings for a user (e.g., theuser can determine that the competitor was eliminated in a specificround because no recordings are scheduled for subsequent rounds). Untilthe user knows the outcome of the competition, the phantom media assetidentifier will appear in the scheduled recordings.

Alternatively, or in addition (e.g., as part of the same display), themedia guidance application may generate for display a menu that enablesthe user to input another participant of interest for subsequentrecordings. Based on receiving the input of another participant, themedia guidance application may query media guidance data or other data(e.g., from Internet data sources such as RSS feeds, social mediasources and real-time data sources), determine media assets in whichanother participant is expected to participate, and add those mediaassets to the list of scheduled recordings. Examples of scheduling ofmedia assets based on data sources is described from example in Lee etal., U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0078174, filed Sep. 30, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.Examples of scheduling of media assets based on media guidance data isdescribed from example in Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,281,341, issuedOct. 2, 2012, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

FIGS. 2-3 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 2-3 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 2-3 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 2 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 200arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 200 may include grid 202 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 204, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 206, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 202 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 208, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 210. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 210 may be provided inprogram information region 212. Region 212 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 202 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 214, recorded content listing 216, andInternet content listing 218. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 200 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings214, 216, and 218 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 202 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 202. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 220. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 220.)

Display 200 may also include video region 222, and options region 226.Video region 222 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 222 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 202. In someembodiments, display 200 may include a selectable option (not shown) toaccess a display of a list of scheduled recordings. For example, themedia guidance application may generate for display the list ofscheduled recordings that is similar to a display generated for displayin response to a selection of third selectable option 128 of FIG. 1. Insome embodiments, the display 110 of FIG. 1 may be generated for displayover grid display 200 upon invoking the display 200, instead of over avideo of a media asset. Grid displays including a video region aresometimes referred to as picture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displaysand their functionalities are described in greater detail in Satterfieldet al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S.Pat. No. 6,239,794, issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporatedby reference herein in their entireties. PIG displays may be included inother media guidance application display screens of the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Options region 226 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 226 may be part of display 200 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 226 may concern features related to program listings in grid 202or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine through monitoring content the user access, the preferencehierarchy of teams that was discussed in reference to the selection ofsecond selectable option 126 in FIG. 1. Additionally, the media guidanceapplication may obtain all or part of other user profiles that arerelated to a particular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internetthe user accesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 5. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 3. Video mosaic display 300 includes selectable options 302 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 300, television listings option 304 isselected, thus providing listings 306, 308, 310, and 312 as broadcastprogram listings. In some embodiments, the display 110 of FIG. 1 may begenerated for display over grid display 300 upon invoking the display300, instead of over a video of a media asset. In display 300 thelistings may provide graphical images including cover art, still imagesfrom the content, video clip previews, live video from the content, orother types of content that indicate to a user the content beingdescribed by the media guidance data in the listing. Each of thegraphical listings may also be accompanied by text to provide furtherinformation about the content associated with the listing. For example,listing 308 may include more than one portion, including media portion314 and text portion 316. Media portion 314 and/or text portion 316 maybe selectable to view content in full-screen or to view informationrelated to the content displayed in media portion 314 (e.g., to viewlistings for the channel that the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 300 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 306 islarger than listings 308, 310, and 312), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 4 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 400. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 5.User equipment device 400 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 402. I/O path 402 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 404, which includesprocessing circuitry 406 and storage 408. Control circuitry 404 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 402. I/O path 402 may connect control circuitry 404 (andspecifically processing circuitry 406) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 4 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 404 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 406. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 408). Specifically, control circuitry 404 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 404 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 404 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 404 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 5). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 408 thatis part of control circuitry 404. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 408 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 5, may be used to supplementstorage 408 or instead of storage 408.

Control circuitry 404 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 404 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 400. Circuitry 404 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 408 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 400, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 408.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 404 using user inputinterface 410. User input interface 410 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 412 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400. For example, display 412 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 410may be integrated with or combined with display 412. Display 412 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 412 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 412 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 412.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry404. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 404.Speakers 414 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 400 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 412 may be played throughspeakers 414. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers414.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 400. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage408), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 404 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 408 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 404 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 410. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 410 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 400 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 400. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 404 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 404) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 400. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 400.Equipment device 400 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 410 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 400 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 410.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 400 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 404). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 404 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 404. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 404. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 400 of FIG. 4 can be implemented in system 500 ofFIG. 5 as user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504,wireless user communications device 506, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 4 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, or awireless user communications device 506. For example, user televisionequipment 502 may, like some user computer equipment 504, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 504 may, like some television equipment 502, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 504, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 506.

In system 500, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 5 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 502, user computer equipment 504, wireless user communicationsdevice 506) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 514.Namely, user television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, andwireless user communications device 506 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 514 via communications paths 508, 510, and 512, respectively.Communications network 514 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 508, 510, and 512 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 512 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 5 it is awireless path and paths 508 and 510 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 508, 510, and 512, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 514.

System 500 includes content source 516 and media guidance data source518 coupled to communications network 514 via communication paths 520and 522, respectively. Paths 520 and 522 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 508, 510,and 512. Communications with the content source 516 and media guidancedata source 518 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 5 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 516 and media guidance data source 518 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 516 and 518 withuser equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 are shown as throughcommunications network 514, in some embodiments, sources 516 and 518 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 508, 510, and 512.

Content source 516 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 516 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 516 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 516 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 518 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 518may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 518 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 518 mayprovide user equipment devices 502, 504, and 506 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 408, and executedby control circuitry 404 of a user equipment device 400. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 404 of user equipment device 400and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 518) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 518), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 518 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices502, 504, and 506 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device. In some embodiments, the OTT sources mayinclude Internet data sources such as RSS feeds, social media sources,news sources, or other sources that are updated at a more frequentinterval than conventional media guidance data. For example, the OTTsources may include a database from which blobs of data (e.g.,javascript object notation (JSON) data, or any other suitable dataformat) for sporting events may be queried and retrieved by userequipment devices 402, 404, and 406.

Media guidance system 500 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 5.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 514.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 516 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 502 and user computer equipment 504may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 506 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 514. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 516 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 518. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 502, user computer equipment 504, and wirelessuser communications device 506. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 504 or wireless usercommunications device 506 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 504. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 514. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 4. Insome embodiments, the cloud resources may include data sources such asRSS feeds, social media sources, news sources, or other sources that areupdated at a more frequent interval than conventional media guidancedata. For example, the cloud resources may provide data (e.g.,javascript object notation (JSON) data, or any other suitable dataformat) for sporting events and may be queried and retrieved by userequipment devices 402, 404, and 406.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 600 forscheduling presentation of a notification to the user in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 600or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 4-5. For example, process 600 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5)) in order to schedule the presentation ofa notification to the user. In addition, one or more steps of process600 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of anyother process or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1and 7-10)).

At step 610, the media guidance application identifies a competitor inthe competition that is of interest to a user (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404). In some embodiments, identifying the competitorcomprises receiving search criteria from the user specifying a team orplayer. For example, the user may enter the name of a team or playerinto a search box. In some embodiments, identifying the competitorcomprises searching a user profile to identify a team or player that isassociated with the user. For example, the user may have a viewinghistory that has multiple occurrences of the user watching baseballgames featuring the New York Yankees. In turn, the media guidanceapplication may identify the New York Yankees as a competitor ofinterest to the user.

At step 620, the media guidance application determines (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) whether the competitor is featured inany of the plurality of media assets associated with the competitionscheduled for transmission in the future (e.g., via the media contentsource 516 (FIG. 5)). For example, the media guidance application maysearch for information about upcoming playoff games scheduled forbroadcasting or streaming. Specifically, the media guidance applicationmay retrieve the detailed information from media guidance data (e.g.,from media guidance data source 518 (FIG. 5)) that includes scheduledbroadcast times and sources for video broadcasts of the games. The mediaguidance application may also retrieve the detailed information fromother data sources such as Internet data feeds. The media guidanceapplication may determine the type of sport based on metadata includedin retrieved media guidance data, or based on information included inthe user command. The media guidance application may also determinewhether the request corresponds to a season games or a playofftournament.

At step 630, the media guidance application schedules presentation of anotification to the user (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) thatthe competitor is not featured in any of the plurality of media assetsassociated with the competition based on a user profile. Thenotification may be displayed on display 412 as an overlay on the userinput interface 410 (FIG. 4). A competitor may not be featured in theplurality of media assets associated with the competition if thecompetitor was previously eliminated, if the competitor did not qualifyto participate in the competition, or if the competition has ended. Forexample, if the competition is the baseball playoffs and the competitoris the New York Yankees, the media guidance application may not findupcoming video game broadcasts featuring the New York Yankees if the NewYork Yankees did not qualify for the playoffs based on their regularseason performance. Likewise, the New York Yankees may not havescheduled games because the team was eliminated during the playoffs.

Scheduling presentation of a notification to the user is initiated bycontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4). Control circuitry first determineswhether the user is aware of the outcome of the competition using themethods discussed previously (e.g., checking if the user has seen thecompetition or an alternative media asset featuring the competitionresult). Control circuitry 404 may refer to the user profile stored instorage 408 to retrieve the user's viewing history. If control circuitrydetermines, based on the viewing history, that the user is viewing orhas viewed either the stored, scheduled broadcast, or an alternativemedia asset of the competition featuring the competitor, thepresentation of a notification may be scheduled when the user hascompleted viewing the media asset. Once the user has completed viewingthe media asset, control circuitry may retrieve information about thecompetition featuring the competitor from the media guidance data source418. This information may include scores, video highlights, audiocommentary, and images associated with the competition featuring thecompetitor and is presented in the second selectable option 126 (FIG.1). Control circuitry generates overlay 120 (FIG. 1) on the user inputinterface 410 which is presented on display 412 (FIG. 4). In the casewhere the media guidance application determines that the user has notviewed at least one of the stored, scheduled broadcast, or alternativemedia assets, the media guidance application delays the presentation ofthe notification and schedules presentation based on the availability ofthe user (discussed in FIG. 10).

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 6 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 6 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 4-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 6.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 700 forscheduling presentation of a notification to the user in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 700or any step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 4-5. For example, process 700 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5)) in order to schedule the presentation ofa notification to the user. In addition, one or more steps of process700 may be incorporated into or combined with one or more steps of anyother process or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1,6 and 8-10)).

At step 710, the media guidance application identifies a competitor inthe competition that is of interest to a user (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4)). This step corresponds to step 610, discussedpreviously. At step 712, the media guidance application searches mediaasset information to identify a plurality of media assets associatedwith the competition, scheduled for transmission in the future. Onceagain, the media guidance application may retrieve the detailedinformation from media guidance data (e.g., from media guidance datasource 518 (FIG. 5)) that includes scheduled broadcast times and sourcesfor video broadcasts of the games. The media guidance application maysearch for the competition that is of interest to the user and thecompetitor in the media guidance data to retrieve specific broadcasttimes and sources for video broadcasts pertaining to the competitor andthe competition. It should be noted that competitors may participate inmultiple competitions at different times. For example, if the mediaguidance application identifies Lionel Messi as the competitor, thecompetition may be the FIFA Club World Cup (worldwide competition) or LaLiga (domestic competition). If the user finds worldwide competitions ofinterest, then the competitor, Lionel Messi, may be identified in thecompetition FIFA Club World Cup.

At step 730, the media guidance application processes data (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) associated with the plurality of mediaassets to determine whether the competitor is featured in any of theplurality of media assets associated with the competition. For example,suppose the competitor is the team the New York Yankees. The mediaguidance application may process data associated with the playoff gamesto determine that the New York Yankees will be featured in the playoffs.In some embodiments, processing data comprises receiving a competitionresult associated with the identified competitor, retrieving acompetition rule associated with the competition, and determining basedon the competition rule and the competition result that the identifiedcompetitor does not advance from a first portion to a second portion ofthe competition. For example, the competition result may indicate thatthe New York Yankees had three runs and the Boston Red Sox, theiropposition, had five runs in the first portion of the competition (e.g.,conference championship series). The competition rule may state that thecompetitor with four wins out of seven games may advance to the secondportion of the competition, the World Series. The media guidanceapplication may determine that the New York Yankees had two wins in theseries, while the Boston Red Sox managed to win four games in theseries. Based on the competition rule, the New York Yankees will notadvance to the World Series. The media guidance application maydetermine that the team of interest has won a game broadcast on acertain day by parsing data streams of the competition for that day.

At step 740, the media guidance application determines (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) whether the competitor is featured in atleast one of the media assets associated with the competition. Based onthe example previously given, the media guidance application maydetermine that the Yankees are not scheduled for another game, due totheir loss to the Boston Red Sox. The media guidance application mayalso determine from the media guidance data source 518 (FIG. 5) that theNew York Yankees do not have upcoming games in their schedule.

In response to determining that the competitor will be featured in atleast one of the media assets associated with the competition, the mediaguidance application causes the at least one media asset to be storedfor the user (e.g., in storage such as RAM, ROM, Hard Disk, RemovableDisk, etc. 408 (FIG. 4)) at step 750. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that a playoff game broadcast is scheduled for8:00 pm Thursday and will feature the New York Yankees. The mediaguidance application may further create an identifier for the mediaasset and add it to the list of scheduled recordings. For example, theidentifier may be a title stating “American League ConferenceChampionship Game 2: New York Yankees vs Boston Red Sox.” On Thursday at8:00 pm, the media guidance application (e.g., via control circuitry 404(FIG. 4)) may store the media asset for the user. If the competition hasalready passed, the media guidance application may also download themedia asset from an on-demand server (e.g., media content source 516(FIG. 5)).

In response to determining that the competitor will not be featured inat least one of the media assets associated with the competition, themedia guidance application retrieves a user profile (e.g., from storagesuch as RAM, ROM, Hard Disk, Removable Disk, etc. 408 (FIG. 4))associated with the user at step 760. The user profile may detail theuser's viewing history, his/her preferences with respect to recordingscheduled media assets, and/or favorite teams and players. It should benoted that the media guidance application may serve multiple users andeach user may have specific preferences and competitors of interest.Thus, the media guidance application may prompt users to identifythemselves on the user input interface 410 (FIG. 4). For example, themedia guidance application may accommodate three users: user A, user B,and user C. If user A is using the media guidance application, the usermay need to log in to the media guidance application or the mediaguidance application may prompt the user to select, from a menu, theuser's profile name.

At step 770, the media guidance application schedules (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) presentation of a notification (e.g., overlay120 (FIG. 1)) to the user that the competitor is not featured in any ofthe plurality of media assets associated with the competition based onthe retrieved user profile. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine that New York Yankees are not featured in any of theupcoming playoff game broadcasts. This may signify that the New YorkYankees have been eliminated from the playoffs, or were not a part ofthe competition altogether. If the competition is the MLB regularseason, the New York Yankees not being featured in future baseball gamebroadcasts can signify that the team's season has ended. In response,the media guidance application may schedule a notification for the userbased on the user's profile. For example, this notification may informthe user that the New York Yankees have been eliminated from the MLBplayoffs or their season has ended, as showcased in overlay 120 (FIG.1). Suppose the retrieved user profile details that the user iscurrently watching all stored media assets associated to the MLBplayoffs, featuring the New York Yankees. If the New York Yankees won inthe first round and were eliminated in the second round, the mediaguidance application may schedule the notification that the New YorkYankees were eliminated after the user has completed watching all storedmedia assets associated to the MLB playoffs, featuring the New YorkYankees.

In the case where the media guidance application cannot technicallydetermine whether the user is aware of the outcome of the result (e.g.,the user finds out the outcome in a conversation with a friend), themedia guidance application must delay the presentation of thenotification until it confirms that the user is aware of the outcome. Toprevent spoilers, the media guidance application must take additionalmeasures into consideration. For example, the user may choose to reviewthe list of scheduled recordings. If the competitor has been eliminated,the media guidance application may place phantom media asset identifiersinto the list of scheduled recordings. These phantom media assetidentifiers will prevent the user from assuming that his/her team hasbeen eliminated (e.g., without the phantom media asset identifiers, theabsence of scheduled media assets for recording may indicate that thecompetitor is no longer in the competition). For example, thecompetition of interest to the user may be the American LeagueConference Championship series of the MLB playoffs. The media guidanceapplication may identify that the competition rule is a best-of-sevenseries and that the team with the majority of wins is expected toadvance to the next round. When the competition begins, the mediaguidance application may add seven phantom media asset identifiers withincremental names. For example, the first phantom media asset identifiermay be titled “American League Conference Championship Game 1,” and thesecond phantom media asset identifier may be titled “American LeagueConference Championship Game 2” and so on. Information regarding thetimings of the phantom media asset identifiers may be retrieved fromsources including, but not limited to, Internet data sources such as RSSfeeds, social media sources, and news sources.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 7 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 7 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 4-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 7.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 800 foridentifying the competitor based on attributes of the user profile inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be notedthat process 800 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 4-5. For example, process 800 maybe executed by control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by a mediaguidance application implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipmentdevices 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5)) in order to identify thecompetitor based on attributes of the user profile. In addition, one ormore steps of process 800 may be incorporated into or combined with oneor more steps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described inrelation to FIGS. 1, 6, 7 and 9-10)).

At step 810, the media guidance application begins the process foridentifying a competitor in the competition that is of interest to auser. In this process, the media guidance application may utilize themedia guidance data source 518, the media content source 516, andcontrol circuitry 404, to identify a competitor, which may be a team orplayer.

At step 820, the media guidance application determines whether the userhas provided search criteria (e.g., on user input interface 410 via I/Opath 402 (FIG. 4)) in order for the media guidance application toidentify a competitor. For example, the user may enter the name of aplayer or team in a search box in the media guidance application.Suppose the user enters “New York Yankees,” or “Aaron Judge” into thesearch box. The media guidance application may acknowledge (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) that the criteria have been received.The user may also provide the search criteria through selectable options124 and 128 (FIG. 1). As discussed previously, selectable option 124allows the user to select a competitor for the media guidanceapplication to record. If the original competitor selected by the useris eliminated, the media guidance application may offer alternatives tothe user that can be recorded. These alternatives may include, but arenot limited to, the opposition that eliminated the user's competitor andthe user's next preferred team based on the user profile.

In response to determining that the media guidance application criteriahave been received from the user, the media guidance applicationprocesses (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) the criteria toidentify the competitor at step 850. For example, upon acknowledgingthat the user has entered “New York Yankees,” or “Aaron Judge,” themedia guidance application may identify that the sport associated withthe user input is baseball. Furthermore, the media guidance applicationmay identify that the competition is the MLB regular season, andtherefore the competitor is a MLB baseball team or MLB baseball player,respectively. Since Aaron Judge is a baseball player playing for the NewYork Yankees, the media guidance application may potentially not findmedia assets featuring the competitor because of injuries or trades. Insome embodiments, control circuitry 404 may retrieve media guidance data(e.g., from media guidance data source 518 or another suitable source),and then parse the media guidance data provided for key words ormetadata relating to the competition. For example, the control circuitry404 may parse the media guidance data for instances of games that arepart of a competition (e.g., MLB season games), in which the specifiedcompetitor (e.g., the New York Yankees) is expected to participate.

In response to determining that the media guidance application criteriahave not been received from the user, the media guidance applicationretrieves the user profile (e.g., from storage such as RAM, ROM, HardDisk, Removable Disk, etc. 408 (FIG. 4)) at step 830. For example, theuser may not specify or provide a competitor that he/she is areinterested in. In this case, the media guidance application may refer tothe user profile to determine attributes that can indicate the user'spreference. The user profile may include the user's viewing history orfavorite teams.

At step 840, the media guidance application identifies the competitorbased on attributes of the user profile. For example, the user mayindicate on his/her user profile a favorite team, the New York Yankees,or a favorite player, Aaron Judge. The media guidance application mayalso determine that the user likes local New York sports teams, or hasviewed multiple broadcasts of MLB games featuring the New York Yankees.In response, the media guidance application may identify the New YorkYankees as the competitor of interest.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 8 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 8 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 4-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 8.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 900 fordetermining that the identified competitor does not advance from a firstportion to a second portion of the competition in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure. It should be noted that process 900 orany step thereof could be performed on, or provided by, any of thedevices shown in FIGS. 4-5. For example, process 900 may be executed bycontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by a media guidanceapplication implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipment devices502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5)) in order to determine that the identifiedcompetitor does not advance from a first portion to a second portion ofthe competition. In addition, one or more steps of process 900 may beincorporated into or combined with one or more steps of any otherprocess or embodiment (e.g., as described in relation to FIGS. 1, 6-8,and 10)).

At step 910, the media guidance application begins the process forprocessing data associated with the plurality of media assets todetermine whether the competitor is featured in any of the plurality ofmedia assets associated with the competition. For example, suppose thecompetitor is the team the New York Yankees. The media guidanceapplication may begin processing data associated with the competition,the MLB playoffs, to determine whether the New York Yankees will befeatured in it.

At step 920, the media guidance application receives (e.g., from mediaguidance data source 518 (FIG. 5)) a competition result associated withthe identified competitor. Suppose for example, the competition is theMLB American League Conference Championship series. The competition mayfeature up to seven games, with a final score at the end of each game.Therefore, the competition result may indicate that the New York Yankeeshad three runs and the Boston Red Sox, their opposition, had five runsin the first portion of the competition (e.g., first game of theseries). The media guidance application may determine that the team ofinterest has won a game broadcast on a certain day by parsing datastreams received (e.g., from media content source 516 (FIG. 5)) of thecompetition for that day, thus determining the competition result (e.g.,via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)). The media guidance application mayalso retrieve result information about at least one instance of theplurality of instances. For example, the media guidance application mayretrieve information received (e.g., from media guidance data source 518or communication network 514 (FIG. 5)) from Internet data sources (e.g.,RSS feeds, news sources, social media sources, etc.) that include ascore and indication of a winner of a game. The media guidanceapplication may determine a competition result from the resultinformation. In some embodiments, control circuitry 404 may determine acompetition result based on professional commentary and/or social mediacommentary. For example, control circuitry 404 may retrieve a newsarticle (e.g., including text of the news article and/or images), andanalyze the text and images to determine a competition result (e.g.,that a participant of interest did win a competition or did not win acompetition).

At step 930, the media guidance application retrieves a competition rule(e.g., from media guidance data source 518 (FIG. 5)) associated with thecompetition. Revisiting the previous example, the competition rule maystate that the competitor with four wins out of seven games may advanceto the second portion of the competition, the World Series. The mediaguidance application may determine that the New York Yankees had twowins in the series, while the Boston Red Sox managed to win four gamesin the series. In some embodiments, the competition rule may also be adeterministic rule, and the media guidance application may apply thecompetition result to estimate the rank by determining a change in therank of the participant. For example, the deterministic rule of thecompetition rule may enable a determination of an outcome of thecompetition with certainty based on whether a certain condition has beenmet based on a portion of the competition that has taken place. This isa common case in “best-of” games and regular season competitions. Forexample, the deterministic rule may be a best-of-seven-games rule, wherea participant advances to a subsequent round of competition by winning asimple majority of seven games within a round of the competition. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that a baseballteam has won four games, based on a score of a current game, and scoreinformation about three prior games in which the baseball team played,and determine that the deterministic rule has been satisfied.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, basedon media guidance data, that the competition relates to a tournament atthe conclusion of a season, instead of regular season games, and thatthe competition relates to baseball. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine the tournament is a double eliminationtournament based on determining that the competition is for a baseballtournament. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat a set of inputs for the competition rule includes a number of timesthat a team of interest has lost a game.

At step 940, the media guidance application determines (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)), based on the competition rule and thecompetition result, that the identified competitor does not advance froma first portion to a second portion of the competition. For example, themedia guidance application may identify a best-of-seven series from theMLB American League Conference Championship as the competition. Themedia guidance application may further determine that the competitionrule requires the competitor to win a majority of the seven games. Themedia guidance application may determine that the user's competitor, theNew York Yankees, had two wins in the series, while the Boston Red Soxmanaged to win four games in the series. Thus, the Boston Red Sox wouldadvance to the World Series and the New York Yankees would beeliminated. The media guidance application may therefore determine,based on the competition result and the competition rule, that the NewYork Yankees will not advance from the first portion of the competition(e.g., MLB American League Conference Championship) to the secondportion of the competition (e.g., MLB World Series).

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 9 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 9 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 4-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 9.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps of a process 1000 forscheduling presentation of a notification based on user availability inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. It should be notedthat process 1000 or any step thereof could be performed on, or providedby, any of the devices shown in FIGS. 4-5. For example, process 1000 maybe executed by control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4) as instructed by a mediaguidance application implemented on a user device (e.g., user equipmentdevices 502, 504, and/or 506 (FIG. 5)) in order to schedule presentationof a notification based on user availability. In addition, one or moresteps of process 1000 may be incorporated into or combined with one ormore steps of any other process or embodiment (e.g., as described inrelation to FIGS. 1 and 6-9)).

At step 1010, the media guidance application begins the process forscheduling presentation of a notification to the user that thecompetitor is not featured in any of the plurality of media assetsassociated with the competition based on the retrieved user profile.This step may be the result of steps discussed previously: 620, 760, and940.

At step 1020, the media guidance application determines (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)), based on the user profile (e.g., fromstorage 408 (FIG. 4)), whether the user has viewed the previouslyavailable media asset at a scheduled transmission time of the previouslyavailable media asset. For example, suppose the user has viewed thesecond game's broadcast of the MLB American League ConferenceChampionship series at the time of its scheduled transmission. The mediaguidance application may retrieve the user profile and refer to theuser's viewing history. The viewing history may indicate that the userhas viewed the broadcast and the media guidance application may confirmthat the previously available media asset has been viewed. At step 1030,the media guidance application provides a decision (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) on whether the user has viewed the previouslyavailable media asset at a scheduled transmission time of the previouslyavailable media asset.

At step 1040, in response to determining that the user has viewed thepreviously available media asset at a scheduled transmission time of thepreviously available media asset, the media guidance applicationschedules (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) the presentation ofthe notification at the end of the scheduled transmission time of thepreviously available media asset. Adding on to the previous example, theuser may have watched the final game broadcast of the MLB AmericanLeague Conference Championship at its scheduled transmission time of8:00 pm. The game may have ended at 11:30 pm, during which the mediaguidance application may determine that the New York Yankees are notadvancing to the MLB World series, based on the competition result andcompetition rule (e.g., the New York Yankees' opponent won a majority ofthe seven games). The media guidance application may then schedulepresentation of the notification at 11:30 pm, which may be displayed asan overlay 120 (FIG. 1). The notification would inform the user that theNew York Yankees have been eliminated from the competition and thereforefuture media assets may no longer be available.

At steps 1050 and 1080, the media guidance application adds options tothe notification that the user may choose from (e.g., access from userinput interface 410 and delivered via I/O path 402 (FIG. 4)). The mediaguidance application adds the option to schedule for storage mediaassets featuring another competitor related to the identified competitorinstead of the media assets featuring the competitor. This may beexecuted as the first selectable option 124 (FIG. 1). For example, themedia guidance application may offer the user the option to schedulerecordings of upcoming media assets featuring the Boston Red Sox, theteam that eliminated the New York Yankees. The media guidanceapplication also adds an option to access at least one of video, audio,and textual highlights of the previously available media asset to thenotification. This may be executed as the second selectable option 126(FIG. 1). For example, the user may select to view video, audio, ortextual information about his/her competitor's performance in their lastgame. This information may be displayed in the form of a game summary, abox-score, video highlights of key plays, post-game analysis by sportsanalysts, and commentary from the game. For example, the user may selectoption 126, generated at step 1080, to be informed that the final scoreof the New York Yankees vs the Boston Red Sox game was one to three, andto view prominent moments of the game such as exceptional catches andhomeruns.

At step 1060, in response to determining that the user has not viewedthe previously available media asset at a scheduled transmission time ofthe previously available media asset, the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) whether the userhas future availability to view a stored version of the previouslyavailable media asset. Revisiting the previous example, the user may nothave viewed the final game broadcast of the MLB American LeagueConference Championship featuring the New York Yankees. Thus, the mediaguidance application may determine that the user has not viewed the gamestream because the user profile does not include the game stream in theviewing history. In some embodiments, determining whether the user hasfuture availability to view the stored version of the previouslyavailable media asset comprises retrieving a calendar associated withthe user, identifying content a user plans to access based on thecalendar, and determining whether there is a gap in the calendar inwhich the user does not plan to access content that has a lengthcorresponding to a duration of the stored version of the previouslyavailable media asset. For example, the media guidance application mayrefer to the user profile and retrieve the user's weekly schedule ofmedia assets. Suppose the New York Yankees' game broadcast for the MLBAmerican League Conference Championship is three hours long. If theuser's calendar indicates that the user intends to watch “Game ofThrones” between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm, followed by “CNN News” between8:00 pm and 9:00 pm, the media guidance application may determine thatthe user is free for four hours between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm. Therefore,the user can watch the stored video of the game.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine (e.g.,via control circuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) that the user does not have futureavailability to view a stored version of the previously available mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may refer to the userprofile and retrieve the user's weekly schedule of media assets. Theuser's calendar may indicate that the user intends to watch “Game ofThrones” between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm, followed by “The Simpsons” between4:00 pm and 8:00 pm, and “CNN News” between 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm, everyday. Suppose the user watches stored media only between 3:00 pm and 9:00pm. Thus, the media guidance application may determine that the userwill not be available to view the MLB American League ConferenceChampionship game featuring the New York Yankees.

At step 1070, in response to determining that the user has futureavailability to view a stored version of the previously available mediaasset, the media guidance application schedules (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) the presentation of the notification immediatelyafter the user views the stored version of the previously availablemedia asset. For example, the user may begin watching the stored versionof the MLB American League Conference Championship game featuring theNew York Yankees two days after the scheduled transmission of the game'sbroadcast. Upon completing viewing the stored version of the game orstopping the stored version without intentions of completing viewing,the media guidance application may present the user with thenotification as the overlay 120 (FIG. 1). Until the user has been madeaware of the outcome of the competition, the media guidance applicationwill preserve phantom media asset identifiers in the list of scheduledrecordings. This will prevent the user from determining the result ofthe competition based on the list of scheduled recordings. Informationregarding the timings of the phantom media asset identifiers may beretrieved from sources including, but not limited to, Internet datasources such as RSS feeds, social media sources, and news sources.

At step 1080, in response to determining that the user does not havefuture availability to view a stored version of the previously availablemedia asset, the media guidance application schedules (e.g., via controlcircuitry 404 (FIG. 4)) presentation of the notification and adds to thenotification an option to access at least one of video, audio, andtextual highlights of the previously available media asset. In someembodiments, alongside the notification, the media guidance applicationmay provide a summary of the game score, and provide highlights ofimportant plays in the game and analysis of player and team performance.This may be executed as the second selectable option 126 (FIG. 1). Priorto scheduling presentation of a notification, the media guidanceapplication may request the user to confirm whether the user intends toview the stored version of the previously available media asset througha prompt on the user input interface 410 for display 412 (FIG. 4). Ifthe user intends to view the stored version of the previously availablemedia asset, the media guidance application may present the user withthe list of scheduled recordings in order to allow the user to adjustthe schedule. In response, the media guidance application may schedulepresentation of the notification immediately after the user has viewedthe stored version of the previously available media asset. If the userdoes not intend to view the stored version, in response the mediaguidance application may present the notification immediately.

It is contemplated that the steps or descriptions of FIG. 10 may be usedwith any other embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the steps anddescriptions described in relation to FIG. 10 may be done in alternativeorders or in parallel to further the purposes of this disclosure. Forexample, each of these steps may be performed in any order or inparallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increase thespeed of the system or method. Any of these steps may also be skipped oromitted from the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that any ofthe devices or equipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 4-5 could beused to perform one or more of the steps in FIG. 10.

It should be understood that the competitions discussed herein couldrefer to sports competitions, academic competitions, electronic gamingcompetitions, voting competitions or any other suitable competition. Forexample, in the case of voting competitions, control circuitry 404 couldreceive a request to record all debates for a political party's primaryelections, as long as a candidate (e.g., a participant of interest) islikely to appear in the primary elections. Because the ranking ofcandidates in primary elections is highly dynamic, it may follow aprobabilistic rule as discussed previously. In the case of electronicgaming competitions and academic competitions (e.g., quiz bowls), “bestof N” or “N elimination” rules are typically.

The processes discussed above are intended to be illustrative and notlimiting. One skilled in the art would appreciate that the steps of theprocesses discussed herein may be omitted, modified, combined, and/orrearranged, and any additional steps may be performed without departingfrom the scope of the invention. More generally, the above disclosure ismeant to be exemplary and not limiting. Only the claims that follow aremeant to set bounds as to what the present invention includes.Furthermore, it should be noted that the features and limitationsdescribed in any one embodiment may be applied to any other embodimentherein, and flowcharts or examples relating to one embodiment may becombined with any other embodiment in a suitable manner, done indifferent orders, or done in parallel. In addition, the systems andmethods described herein may be performed in real time. It should alsobe noted that the systems and/or methods described above may be appliedto, or used in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

1-51. (canceled)
 52. A method for avoiding spoilers in presentingprompts relating to a plurality of media assets, the method comprising:identifying a notification that is to be displayed on a user device;determining that the notification comprises a spoiler for a particularmedia asset of the plurality of media assets; retrieving a user profileassociated with a user to determine whether the user has previouslyviewed the particular media asset; determining that the user has notpreviously viewed the particular media asset of the plurality of mediaassets based on the user profile and, in response, schedulingpresentation of the notification to the user for after playback of theparticular media asset.
 53. The method of claim 52: wherein theplurality of media assets relates to a competition; wherein thedetermining that the notification comprises a spoiler for the particularmedia asset of the plurality of media assets comprises determining thata competitor in the competition is featured in the particular mediaasset, but not in any media assets of the particular media asset thatfollow the particular media asset.
 54. The method of claim 53, whereinthe determining that the notification comprises a spoiler for theparticular media asset of the plurality of media assets comprisesdetermining that the competitor is of interest to the user.
 55. Themethod of claim 54, wherein determining that the competitor is ofinterest to the user comprises searching a user profile to identify ateam or player that is associated with the user.
 56. The method of claim54, wherein determining that the competitor is of interest to the usercomprises receiving search criteria from the user specifying a team orplayer.
 57. The method of claim 53, wherein the determining that thecompetitor in the competition is featured in the particular media asset,but not in any media assets of the particular media asset that followthe particular media asset comprises: receiving a competition result ofthe competition from the particular media asset; retrieving acompetition rule associated with the competition; determining, based onthe competition rule and the competition result, that the competitordoes not advance from a first portion to a second portion of thecompetition.
 58. The method of claim 52, wherein the notificationincludes an option to schedule for storage media assets featuringanother competitor related to the identified competitor instead of themedia assets featuring the competitor.
 59. The method of claim 52,further comprising: in response to determining that the user has notpreviously viewed the particular media asset, assigning a phantom mediaasset identifier to a media asset that follows the particular mediaasset, wherein the phantom media asset identifier represents aplaceholder for a media asset that has not been stored.
 60. The methodof claim 59, further comprising, in response to presenting thenotification to the user, removing the phantom media asset identifierfrom an asset list.
 61. A system for avoiding spoilers in presentingprompts relating to a plurality of media assets, the system comprising:a memory; and control circuitry communicatively coupled to the memoryconfigured to: identifying a notification that is to be displayed on auser device; determine that the notification comprises a spoiler for aparticular media asset of the plurality of media assets; retrieve a userprofile associated with a user to determine whether the user haspreviously viewed the particular media asset; determine that the userhas not previously viewed the particular media asset of the plurality ofmedia assets based on the user profile and, in response, schedulingpresentation of the notification to the user for after playback of theparticular media asset.
 62. The system of claim 61: wherein theplurality of media assets relates to a competition; wherein thedetermining that the notification comprises a spoiler for the particularmedia asset of the plurality of media assets comprises determining thata competitor in the competition is featured in the particular mediaasset, but not in any media assets of the particular media asset thatfollow the particular media asset.
 63. The system of claim 62, whereinthe determining that the notification comprises a spoiler for theparticular media asset of the plurality of media assets comprisesdetermining that the competitor is of interest to the user.
 64. Thesystem of claim 63, wherein determining that the competitor is ofinterest to the user comprises searching a user profile to identify ateam or player that is associated with the user.
 65. The system of claim63, wherein determining that the competitor is of interest to the usercomprises receiving search criteria from the user specifying a team orplayer.
 66. The system of claim 62, wherein the determining that thecompetitor in the competition is featured in the particular media asset,but not in any media assets of the particular media asset that followthe particular media asset comprises: receive a competition result ofthe competition from the particular media asset; retrieve a competitionrule associated with the competition; determine, based on thecompetition rule and the competition result, that the competitor doesnot advance from a first portion to a second portion of the competition.67. The system of claim 61, wherein the notification includes an optionto schedule for storage media assets featuring another competitorrelated to the identified competitor instead of the media assetsfeaturing the competitor.
 68. The system of claim 61, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured to: in response to determiningthat the user has not previously viewed the particular media asset,assign a phantom media asset identifier to a media asset that followsthe particular media asset, wherein the phantom media asset identifierrepresents a placeholder for a media asset that has not been stored. 69.The system of claim 68, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to, in response to presenting the notification to the user,remove the phantom media asset identifier from an asset list.